Tag Archives: DIY

Lately I rediscovered my love of LEGO and turned it into my hobby. Everyone needs a hobby and, while somewhat expensive, LEGO is as good as any. It seems to stimulate the same part of my brain as coding. My first project was a new Christmas train to ring the Christmas tree in the living room. This new train was to replace my 2 year old Lionel 30068 North Pole Central train which was destine for Ebay. Suzanne and I discussed it and, while more expensive, determined a LEGO Train would be cooler and could evolve over the years. It would also dove-tail with my new LEGO hobby.

The funds for the train came from the sale Lionel 30068 train and the sales of an unopened Transformer from 1984 (that’s another story). The first purchase was a set LEGO started producing in 2009; Emerald Night. This was a great start for the project because of LEGO’s amazing job designing this beautiful train. It’s loosely based on British Flying Scotsman and makes for an innovative example of what is possible with LEGO bricks. The train uses Technic gears as a transmission powered by a LEGO Power Functions motor. The coal tender serves a similar purpose as it’s real life inspiration by housing a lithium-polymer battery powering the motor.

Intrigued by the Emerald Night and I wanted to expand the set. Unfortunately LEGO does not offer any expansion sets, so I knew I was on my own and was going to have to build it myself. I was disappointed after sniffing around on eBay and Google so I decided to asked the experts on the unofficial LEGO StackExchange. They pointed me in the direction of BrickLink, which I had found before, but as a web developer I was turned off by the >10 year old web design. Deciding instead not to judge a book by it’s cover I dove in. BrickLink is cool because it allows you to build a “wanted list” of individual LEGO bricks, specify the quantity, choose the condition, and specify the color. Using the “wanted list” you can find sellers that have some, if not all, of the bricks you need. I made a few “wanted lists” for each of the parts of the train I wanted to build. I ended up buying 1530 bricks from 16 sellers located in the United States, Germany, and the Netherlands. These bricks combined with parts from the LEGO City Cargo Train #7939 allowed me to assemble my 9 car long (including engines) LEGO Super Emerald Night Christmas Express.

The Assembly Line

The train is lead by the aforementioned Emerald Night engine and tender. This is followed by Christmas cars carrying Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, some toys, and Christmas trees. The next three cars are passenger carriages with Christmas lights decorating and wreaths decorating the exteriors. The next-to-last car is a power car providing supplemental rear power and is dressed up to look like a baggage and crew car. The final car is of course the iconic caboose, based on custom instructions sold by juliochavez1 on Ebay, fitted with rear tail lights. I embedded the Flickr set below, if you don’t have Flash, check it out on Flickr.